Warm fog has frequently been the cause of aircraft takeoff and landing delays and flight cancellations. Much research has been conducted to obtain further knowledge on the physical and electrical characteristics of warm fog with the hope that a sound understanding would suggest a practical way to modify warm fog for improved visibility and subsequently increase airport utilization.
Promising methods and techniques developed included the seeding with hygroscopic material such as salt particles, using charged particle generators which produce a high-velocity jet of air and charged water droplets which disperse fog by modifying its electric field structure, using heaters and burners that evaporate the fog-forming droplets, using helicopters for mixing dry air downward into the fog, and dropping water from an aircraft in order to dissipate the fog.
These prior techniques have a characteristic of being expensive or being ineffective on a large scale or producing considerable environmental pollution.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an effective technique for fog dissipation on a large scale.
Another object is to provide a system for spraying large amounts of water in the air adjacent airport runways for fog dissipation.